Industrial Revolution 4.

0 -
Explained

What is Industrial Revolution 4.0?

• Industry 4.0 has been de ned as “a name for the current trend of
automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies, including
cyber-physical systems, the Internet of things, cloud computing and
cognitive computing and creating the smart factory”
• IR 4.0 refers to the intelligent networking of machines and processes for
industry with the help of information and communication technology.
• The term "Industry 4.0",
shortened to I4.0 or simply
I4, originated in 2011 from
a project in the high-tech
strategy of the German
government, which
promotes the
computerisation of
manufacturing
• The term "Industry 4.0"
was publicly introduced in
the same year at the
Hannover Fair
• Industry 4.0 is often used
interchangeably with the
notion of the fourth
industrial revolution. It is
characterised by, among
others,
1. even more automation
than in the third industrial
revolution
2. the bridging of the
physical and digital world
through cyber-physical
systems, enabled by Industrial IoT
3. a shift from a central industrial control system to one where smart
products de ne the production steps

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 4. closed-loop data models and control systems an

5. personalisation/customisation of products
6. The goal is to enable autonomous decision-making processes, monitor
assets and processes in real-time, and enable equally real-time
connected value creation networks through early involvement of
stakeholders, and vertical and horizontal integration

The Evolution of Industry 1.0 to

4.0

The First Industrial Revolution

• The rst revolution brought economies around the world out of agriculture
and handcrafts, into the world of machines. While farming and handmade
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 goods still form a large part of today’s economy, they are nonetheless
a ected by the use of machines.
• The revolution rst began in Britain and then spread throughout the rest of
the world. Here are some of the advances it introduced in manufacturing:
• Invention of new machines, such as the spinning jenny
• Improvements in transportation and communication
• Reliance on new energy sources, such as coal
• The use of new raw materials, such as steel
• Division of labor and worker specialisation

The Second Industrial Revolution

• This revolution occurred in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At this time,
manufacturers began to experiment with more synthetic materials and
machines evolved to play an even more important role in industry.
• Inventors created computers, automatic operations came into existence
and plastics joined the production line. World War I, which lasted from
1914 to 1918, also helped to revolutionise manufacturing. The two key
features of the second industrial revolution are mass production and the
use of electricity.

The Third Industrial Revolution

• Meanwhile, the key features of the third industrial evolution were electronic
devices and information technology system. This led to the rapid change
from analog to more digital systems in manufacturing plants.
• The new form of modernism took root in the 1950s and spread like wild re.
Automation software also made its debut at this time, taking over many of
the menial tasks previously completed by humans. This led to perhaps the
rst big scare that machines would now lead to mass human
unemployment.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

• Nicknamed Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing, the fourth stage of the
industrial revolution unfolded over the past few decades. The key feature of
this revolution is cyber-physical systems.
• Organisations have also taken automation to a whole new level.
• In addition to this, whereas the prior revolutions mainly focused on
economic changes, this time, political and cultural changes played equally
important roles in how technology transformed America and the rest of the
world.
• Most of these changes were fast-tracked and then spread globally with the
help of the Internet of Things.
• This provided a new level of interconnectivity that had never been seen
before. Not only were people aware of events happening halfway across
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 the world, but economies had become so intertwined that they were
a ected by them.

• For all its social implications, Industry 4.0 is still primarily based on the
changes to manufacturing. The current manufacturing process is more
holistic, creating interlinks between the physical and the digital. This is
what creates the cyber-physical ecosystem that characterises this phase of
the ongoing industrial revolution.
• The key elements of the fourth Industrial Revolution are the fusion of
technologies, ranging from physical to digital to biological spheres, and is
marked by diverse technological breakthroughs that bring together the
elds of robotics, arti cial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and
a host of othe

Opportunity Wise IR 4.0 can provide the Following Bene ts:-

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 Industry 4.0 Challenge
The Challenges which will come across IR 4.0 can be divided into following
heads -

Ethical Challenges:-
A key function of a thriving civil society sector in democracies is its ability to
promote accountability, fairness, trust and transparency in society,
particularly in response to gaps and failures in both the public and private
sector

The use of digital and emerging technologies by companies, governments

and civil society groups has ushered in new challenges and entrenches
existing challenges associated with:-
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 Accountability Fairnes Trust &

Transparency

Who should be How can society How does the use of

accountable for the ill- ensure that digital and emerging
effects of digital and individuals and technologies
emerging groups are treated in promote, rather than
technologies? And who the same way? decrease, trust within
is responsible for Challenging areas society? Challenging
shaping the in uence
include: the lack of areas include: the
and impact of these
inclusive or lack of utility of digital
technologies
participative models; data notice and
auditing disparate consent
Various examples impact in algorithmic mechanisms; limited
stand out, including systems; and dialogue and
algorithmic selection bias. communication; and
accountability a power imbalance
in stopping the spread
of fake news; individual
and group privacy How does the use of
violations resulting digital and emerging
from data-sharing technologies promote
projects and maps; transparency?
high volatility Challenging areas
associated with crypto- include: the lack of
philanthropy; and bias interpretable
and misrepresentation frameworks; harmful
in virtual reality (VR)
transparency from
story telling.
open data (causing
group privacy
violations); and
information
manipulation and
opacity (e.g. in
algorithmically-
curated
systems recommendi
ng alternative or
extremist versions of
available
information).
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 Challenges for Business:-

1. A Gap in Technical Skills: The needs required of the workforce all

evolving. Are your employees able to keep up? Only with the right workforce
will business models be able to successfully implement new technology and
maintain operations

2. Data Sensitivity: The rise in technology has also led to increasing

concerns over data and IP privacy, ownership, and management. A common
example- To successfully implement an AI algorithm, data is required to train
it and test it. For this to happen, the data must be shared. However, many
companies are reluctant to share their data with third-party solution
developers. Further, our current data governance policies for internal use
within organisations are inadequate to support cross-organisational data
sharing

3. Interoperability: Another signi cant issue is the lack of separation

between protocols, components, products, and systems. Unfortunately,
interoperability impedes companies’ ability to innovate. Further, since they
cannot easily “swap out” one vendor for another or one part of the system for
another, interoperability also limits options to upgrade system components

4. Security: Threats in terms of current and emerging vulnerabilities in the

factory are another signi cant concern. The physical and digital systems that
make up smart factories make real-time interoperability possible—however, it
comes with the risk of an expanded attack surface. When numerous
machines and devices are connected to single or multiple networks in a smart
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 factory, vulnerabilities in any one of those pieces of equipment could make

the system vulnerable to attack. To help combat this issue, companies need
to anticipate both enterprise system vulnerabilities and machine level
operational vulnerabilities. Companies are not fully prepared to deal with
these security threats, with many relying on their technology and solution
providers to scope out vulnerabilities

5. Handling Data Growth: As more companies become dependent on AI

usage, companies will be faced with more data that is being generated at a
faster pace and presented in multiple formats. To wade through these vast
amounts of data, AI algorithms need to be easier to comprehend. Further,
these algorithms need to be able to combine data that might be of different
types and timeframes

Challenges with Regards to Job losses and new job

creation:-
• With the increasing expansion of automation and arti cial intelligence, the
issue is how the nature of work itself is changing in a constantly developing
digital world, demanding constant adaptation. This is the challenge faced by
every age group in the workforce

• A number of studies published in recent years paint a bleak picture of future

employment, predicting the loss of millions of jobs

• In the fact that while international organisations are warning of massive job
losses stemming from developments in robotics, there is also a serious
shortage of people with digital skills in the labor force. In Europe alone there
will be a shortage of about 500,000 ICT professionals by the end of 2020.
Of cial European Union gures, meanwhile, show that within the next few
years, 90 percent of jobs will require digital skills, a serious concern given
that 60 percent of the workforce today is not acquainted with that
technology beyond the basics
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 Box- How can Manufacturers and Workers Prepare for IR4.0

• In order to be prepared for this, manufacturers have to ensure that all their
resources are up to step to face the new order. Learning and Development
initiatives have to be more inclusive and take into consideration the varying
needs of the resources. To achieve great training outcomes and to ensure
that training costs are controlled, manufacturing companies need a new age
training program … one that is complementary to the new age
manufacturing unit
• Given the large resource pool that needs training, the diverse training
needs of the workers — a large and often distributed workforce —
manufacturing industries need a new training model that can proactively
improve resource knowledge base. Training programs have to be more
scalable, personalised, and exible to adjust to the dynamic needs of
Industry 4.0
• To perform effectively with Industry 4.0, workers will need to apply a variety
of “hard” skills. They will have to combine know-how related to a speci c job
or process, such as techniques for working with robots or changing tools on
machines, with IT competencies that range from basic (using spreadsheets
and accessing interfaces) to advanced (applying advanced programming
and analytic skills). The need for multiple hard skills and the unprecedented
scope of changes on the shop oor mean that “soft” skills will become more
important than ever
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 • Employees will have to be even more open to change, possess greater
exibility to adapt to new roles and work environments and get accustomed
to continual interdisciplinary learning

Box - Education 4.0

Education 4.0 is a purposeful approach to learning that lines up with the
fourth industrial revolution and about transforming the future of education
using advanced technology and automation
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 How industry 4.0 affect the education industry

• With education 4.0, there’s a cultivating peer-to-peer learning atmosphere
with students being able to learn collaboratively and from each other
• The role of teachers is that of facilitators. The curriculum and learning
outcomes focus on complex 21st-century skills including problem-solving,
critical thinking, creativity, people management, teamwork and
collaboration, emotional intelligence, judgment and decision-making,
service orientation, negotiation, and cognitive exibility.

How can education institutions prepare students for

Education 4.0
The only way is by aligning industry requirements with education. Here are a
few ways by which the same could be achieved;
Remodelling of Curriculum with special stress on futuristic subjects. With
digitisation and automation, a skill-based curriculum is an order of the day.
Employers are running short of skilled workforce and bank on universities and
educational institutions to up-skill the present workforce.

Building digital skills. Institutions should have modern workplace skills

and focus on training their faculty to build digital skills to develop fully
able students for their workplace. Soft skills should be made
indispensable with a mix of problem-solving, social skills, and process
skills.
 

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 Opt for digital tools for virtual learning (face to face) environments
(VLEs). This is picking up across the world where students and faculty
gain remote access for teaching through LMS. Learning and teaching,
accessing course content, online chat facilities, discussions,
collaborations, peer teaching, blended learning, all happen in exible
hours.
Tweaking of course delivery. There should be a synchronisation
between the Faculty and the curriculum taught. Faculty should be open
to using technological applications to improve students’ cognitive
learning abilities.\
Technology built classrooms to be initiated across universities, colleges,
and higher education institutions to deliver successful graduates for the
cyber-physical systems prevalent across all industries.

India and IR 4.0

• In 2018, the World Economic Forum setup its Centre for the Fourth
Industrial Revolution in India to work in collaboration with the GoI
 

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• The National Institute for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog is the designated
nodal agency to interact with the World Economic Forum for elaborating the
new policy frameworks for emerging technologies.
• The GoI has already made the enabling policy framework and set up
incentives for infrastructure development on a PPP (Public Private
Partnership) model.
• Samarth Udyog Bharat 4.0 (Smart Advanced Manufacturing and Rapid
Transformation Hubs) under the Department of Heavy Industries (Ministry
of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises) is the India’s initiative to push for
Industry 4.0 implementation with an aim to propagate technological
solutions to Indian manufacturing units by 2025 through steps like
awareness programme, training, demo centres etc.
• The industry, academia and international cooperation in the eld of
technologies related to Industry 4.0 is the policy formulated by the
government
• India’s National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) has been promulgated which
aims at enhancing the share of manufacturing in GDP to 25% and Industry
4.0 is the only way ahead to achieve this task.
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